No Yale student should ever walk in fear of the city he or she lives in. Yet by the time our four years in New Haven are up, far too many of us will have gone through our time at Yale having barely ventured beyond the so-called bubble. And most Yale students will admit — »

Homer Simpson once famously said that one cannot win friends with salad. But since Feb. 4, two New Haven public schools have been trying to prove him wrong. The schools’ effort is part of the “Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools” program, a new nationwide initiative aimed at lowering child obesity rates that started last »

As financial institutions nationwide try to right themselves in the wake of the credit crisis, two local banks are grappling for the hearts, minds, and wallets of New Haven residents. Bucking the national trend of increasing fees, the New Haven-based NewAlliance Bank offers no-fee checking accounts, which it has begun to promote via a vigorous »

A new federal grant hopes to help New Haven smooth the path from prison back to civilian life for convicts. On Wednesday, the Board of Aldermen’s Human Services Committee voted to authorize Mayor John DeStefano to accept a $500,000 grant from the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance for the Prison Reentry Initiative. Founded in 2008, »

After Halloween, one New Haven store will put away its spooky costumes for good. This weekend, Yalies will take part in longstanding Halloween traditions, from the midnight Yale Symphony Orchestra concert to pumpkin carving in college courtyards. But for the Costume Bazaar, a New Haven store that has sold wigs, masks and other festive paraphernalia »

A planned streetcar will expand New Haven transportation options to Union Station, but students who cite cost of ridershipare unsureabout the plan. The proposed New Haven tramline will provide an alternative to the free Yale shuttle. But students interviewed over the weekend were largely ambivalent about the convenience and more concerned about the cost of »

Noisy, hot and packed to the brim. Such were New Haven’s streetcars on autumn Saturdays of the 1930s and ’40s, when Yale students would pile in for a journey down Chapel Street to watch the football team at the Yale Bowl. “Each of the cars would just be jammed to the roof,” Colman Ives ’39 »

City officials unveiled plans last week for a streetcar that they say will boost the local economy — a claim that doesn’t have some urban planning experts on board. City Hall transportation officials held a public meeting at the Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School last Thursday to detail the city’s plans to reintroduce a »

Mayor John DeStefano Jr. told students Monday night that the weak economy should be used as an opportunity to improve the lives of city residents through major reforms in education, taxation and immigration. Addressing a gathering of about 25 Yale College Democrats at St. Anthony Hall, DeStefano discussed the “Promise Program,” his new initiative to »